AMANDA WILLIAMS: Returning to London after a year in the countryside, the signs of societal collapse are everywhere – even at 7am

At first glance, it looked like a domestic argument at the bus stop. But as I got closer, I realized these were no ordinary couple, and they weren’t arguing over whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher.

A woman in a tightly belted coat was screaming in the face of an old man cowering in front of her.

Then she started beating him with the back of her open hand, until the man, filled with fear and guilt, found his wallet inside his coat.

When I stopped to see if they were okay, I noticed her bare, worn legs, her smeared make-up smeared across her scarred, flower-patterned face, and I soon realized what had happened. She was a prostitute, he was her client.

He looked at me and gave me a thumbs up. And I kept walking.

A few seconds later, I saw another young woman wearing heels lingering on a street corner, checking her phone, apparently on her way to work.

A few minutes later, a hooded man on a moped with L-plates arrived and handed over a packet of medicine in a small plastic bag.

He never went to work. He was on his way home and what he was working on was the package.

Neglected tents line up in Hyde Park, which is said to be one of London’s most notable tourist attractions.

Maybe it’s normal so far. This is London, after all.

But it was only 7 a.m. and I was walking through the grounds of Hyde Park, an affluent tree-lined neighborhood full of hotels.

Other times, on the same walk to work, I saw people openly smoking crack cocaine. One was in full view. Another had at least the embarrassment of hiding behind a bus stop and surrounding himself with a protective fortress of plastic bags.

For Londoners, such scenes are unfortunately commonplace. So why do I find them shocking?

The answer is that I have been away for a year because I just had a child.

After a long period spent in the countryside with a young baby and living in a delightful, occasionally boring (and often full of potholes and rubbish) village, I approached my return from maternity leave with excitement.

In fact, I was desperate to get back to the anonymous buzz of the city.

As I stared hopelessly out the window at the sheep field outside the Oxfordshire house we bought six years ago, I harbored romantic thoughts of moving back to the city and raising our daughter with like-minded parents. He could play with the other cool kids of 40-something moms while we drank Sauvignon.

Frankly, Motherland and Richard Curtis are too much for me. Because the London of my memory (or imagination) does not exist, and even in the short year I have been away it has changed beyond recognition.

My walk to work from Marylebone station was a welcome relief after a cramped 50-minute journey in which I was once stuck in a stuffy train carriage, next to men in gray suits who wouldn’t look up from their laptops, pretending they couldn’t see the elderly person or pregnant woman looking for a seat.

It takes me through the multicultural chaos of Edgware Road, past the terraced mansions and smart hotels of Sussex Gardens, through Hyde Park and onto Kensington Gardens; Here I am walking past the Palace and down Kensington High Street, which was once incredibly glamorous – at least to a girl from the sticks like me – towards the office.

Now my walk (inevitably I walk because the Metro is truly fucked) begins with me taking my life in my hands as I dodge hooded young men and masked e-bike riders zipping along sidewalks, red lights and crosswalks.

I’m currently driving along Edgware Road, a maze of metal fences and roadworks, passing closed pubs, seemingly abandoned churches and mysterious “storage” warehouses; Here I see piles of dirty rags and sleeping bags filling the doors, hands and feet sticking out.

After a long period spent in the countryside with a toddler and living in a delightful, occasionally dull village, I approached my return from maternity leave with excitement, writes Amanda Williams

The London of my memory (or imagination) is gone, and even in the short year I have been away from it it has changed beyond recognition

I jog towards Hyde Park, passing bemused American tourists blinking in the gray light as they lug their suitcases out of hotels and Airbnbs, and watch until I realize that prostitutes are paying up to £200 a night to stay in an alley where they collect their drugs, near what appears to be an immigration hotel.

On a bench in the shadow of Kensington Palace (Kate and William’s home in London), an elderly figure sleeps upright, covered with a duvet, next to a hauntingly small stroller stuffed to the brim with old papers and plastic bags.

What happened to this city?

I know homelessness is not new. Neither of them are drugs. Prostitution, as we know, is the oldest profession in the world. But seeing it with new eyes, I realized how visible the societal collapse is now, and how fragmented it has become since I was last here.

It is well known that ‘tent cities’ are popping up in the shopping and tourist areas of the West End.

Yet central London is a huge mess full of American Confectionery stores and vape shops: C**p empires selling knock-off Harry Potter products.

Add in the incessant roadworks, the smell of marijuana on every street, the lack of civic pride, community, unity…

Not a single work day goes by that I don’t feel grateful to be out of this disastrous city and back to my little rural home away from it all. Back to the lovely, kind neighbors who know my name, they ask about my day and tell me when to empty my trash.

I realized how privileged I was to have the opportunity to choose; I’ll be able to get the hell out of Dodge whenever I want and need to.

The people I feel sorry for are the people who don’t have this luxury.

London may be open to all because Mayor Sadiq Khan likes to play the trumpet. But who would want to go there now?

It’s definitely not me.